Cougar town?

No, not the execrable Courtney Cox sitcom (sorry Courtney, it's not you - you're darling - it's the show).  I have an issue with the word, to being with, something which has been loudly debated among friends, male and female.  The weird thing about the adjectival noun 'cougar' is that young men regard it as a compliment, while some women - myself included - find it vaguely offensive.  It's aggressive, predatory.  To me it implies a sexually voracious woman who seduces men at least 20 years her junior.  Seduces?  Devours.  It also calls to mind a woman trying hard to look half her age.  Perhaps these are outdated notions of the older woman/younger man pairing, somehow considered less acceptable (and less common) than the older man/younger woman pairing which we see all the time, sometimes to positively creepy degrees.  Michael Douglas, I'm looking at you.  You too, Hugh Hefner - just because you've made an industry out of it, doesn't make it right.  Maybe I should just 'get with the program, sista'.  But wait a second, here's another bugbear; there's no equivalent term for men of a certain age on the prowl for much younger women.  Because that's still considered more 'normal' and therefore doesn't warrant a special name.  AND, it seems now that a woman needs only to be over 30 to be described as a 'cougar'.  Hot and over 30.  Good grief.  So I still don't know whether to be flattered or annoyed to be described as that particular type of feline.  Both.

Ok, rant over, let me backtrack.  It's been a VERY busy week for this little displaced actress.  Three Beaten Hearts rehearsals, including one in the theatre - yay!  We took some happy snaps: ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to introduce The Cast!

L to R: Max, Suzanne, CC, Alex & James

Yes, I am wearing a tiara.

The show is coming together beautifully, thanks for asking, and we'll have our sexy postcards within the next few days.  Watch out, Los Angeles, Mrs Bosoms is coming!

On Wednesday I drove to Long Beach, about 35 minutes south of Los Angeles on the freeway (with light traffic) to film - finally - Don't Drink the Bong Water.  It's a comedy about a couple of stoners trying to light their bong and being visited by an assortment of crazy characters, including yours truly playing a possible call girl/Super Nanny type.  If there is such a thing.  Anyway, Delilah (for that is her name) terrorizes one stoner into the corner like the naughty boy that he is, while paralyzing the other with a spiked cup of tea and then stealing his trousers.  None of it makes much sense but it's enjoyable nonsense.  The two guys playing the stoners were very cute and one of them was outrageously flirty.  I mean, really.  Let me give you a mental image: olive skin, green eyes, luxuriantly long brown hair, tattoos on his back, roughly my height (if not shorter), 25 years old.  A cheeky urchin.  I was flattered and highly amused.  He described me as a total c-word (NOT the four-letter one, the one discussed at length in the first paragraph!) except for the bit where I turned him down.  Hence my confusion about the term.  Never in a million years would I describe myself that way.  He meant it as a compliment, so I'll take it as such, but what the??

Friday night I headed downtown to a supermarket to film a couple of scenes for Greeters, the latest project of USC film student Jerry, who cast me in his short film Lost Girls last year.  Greeters is about an old codger who works as a greeter at a Walmart-style store who decides, 20 or so years after his divorce, to get back on the dating scene.  I play one of his workmates.  It was a late night shoot because we had to wait until the store was officially closed before we could get in there.  Funny playing a supermarket supervisor, recalled my days at Safeway!

L to R: Garrett (old codger #1), Jerry (our gigantic director - no, he's not standing on a box, he's really that tall), CC and Geoff (old codger #2)

The sign in the background reads "Liquor & Health Care" - a curious combination.  Shelves of shampoo and shower gels faced off with wine, beer, spirits and a variety of awful-looking concoctions calling themselves flavoured wines.  That's right, merlot with a dash of blackberry syrup.  Or strawberry syrup.  Or chardonnay with mango.  Hideous, awful, stomach-churning.  I'd rather clean the shower with it than drink it.  Anyway, this was a really fun shoot.  We've another scene to shoot next week, which was actually scheduled this week but was cancelled when Garrett got delayed on the set of a commercial where he was employed as High Hefner's stand-in.  Yep, Old Codger #1 himself is Hef's size and height.  As you see, he's only about my height.  Garrett had a lovely time out at the Playboy mansion, although the only birds he snapped were the feathered variety.